EMIR student, Ms. Jennifer D. Tapia Boada shares her experience and insights about the first Case Study carried out the 23 and 24 of March regarding Emerging Methods in Strategic Foresight & Risk Governance in the 21st Century.

“I consider that the case study weekend on Emerging Methods in Strategic Foresight and Risk Governance in the 21st Century was remarkably interesting for all of us because it represented a very comprehensive topic framed on contemporary global governance. The first day, we gained a broad perspective on the strategic ways to anticipate to emerging risks of this century, and the efficient ways to deal with possible risk scenarios at the international level as well as their implementation at national level. We started off analyzing the IRGC Risk Governance Framework and became familiar with the characteristics of risks assessment processes, including complexity, uncertainty, and ambiguity. Likewise, we learned about technological, scientific and systematic risks related to cybersecurity, medicine developments, the Internet of things, distributed ledger technologies and artificial intelligence, among others. Lastly, we went through simulation exercises to learn how to anticipate to possible scenarios for given global emerging topics, and we came up with different strategies to prevent or mitigate them. The second day, we focused on foresight strategies while analyzing global trends and driving forces, with views to gain a contextual view as the first step for finding and analyzing a range of possible futures in global governance. We had a deeper review of disruptive technologies and advanced robotics and analyzed the current risks that climate change represents.

We learned the different techniques for risk assessment including the 2×2 scenario building. Additionally, we went over some current global risks such as severe pandemics, demographic collapses, weapons of mass destruction, diplomacy disengagement, currency collapses, solar storms, accidents in nuclear power plants, meteorite impact, flooding, earthquakes, mass migration, and technological resources for future warfare such as autonomous weapons, and military robots. Moreover, we analyzed the different types of war both military and not military, in order to understand the creation of scenarios at a national level. Furthermore, we revised the concepts of resilience, prevention and risk management. Likewise, we learned National Disaster Risk Assessment with the case study of Switzerland’s methodology so we went over the individual, environmental, economy and social indicators to measure damage, as well as the different types of reports used in this methodology including preparedness planning, risks reports, and hazard files. In addition, as a case study, we analyzed Switzerland’s National Risk Governance and Disaster Management Methodology, together with all stakeholders’ interactions to make it operate. Lastly, we simulated a possible scenario in the city of Geneva involving the risk of a dirty bomb, in order to see how risks assessment tools employed in Switzerland work in reality.“